David Lamkins picked up his first guitar a long time ago. As best he can recall the year was 1967: the year of the Summer of Love. Four decades later David has conjured up an amalgam of folk, rock and jazz solo guitar music for the occasional intimate Portland audience.

Pedal hangover

I have to wonder why I bother buying pedals...

A couple nights agoe I was playing through two amps at once
(without hum, thanks to Ebtech Audio's nifty little Hum-X gadget) and
decided that I should try all the tricks I've been wanting to try with
my pan pedal and Morley ECV (echo/chorus/vibrato). I had fun for
about 20 minutes, then got a bad case of "FX hangover."
That's where you realize you're listening to the electronics and not
the guitar. Not only that, but you realize that you're playing
differently to try (unsuccessfully) to compensate for the effects.
Then I unplug all the pedals and everything sounds so much
better.

Keeping lists is a dangerous pastime. I just discovered that over
the past six years I've owned approximately thirty assorted pedals and
rack FX. That's not a lot by some some standards; I know at one local
guitarist who has had almost that many pedals in his stage rig. But I
only own three of the thirty pedals today, and two of those are on the
endangered list... Also, I've noticed I keep making the same mistakes
over and over. Apparently I have a weak spot for volume pedals, wahs
and echo units.

I seem to have reached a point where I resent any effect that
reduces dynamics, rolls off the high-end, messes with timing,
introduces a dramatic discontinguous change of tone, or does something
that's independent of what I play. (That last bit is basically an
indictment of all modulation effects.) And no, that doesn't leave
much that I do like, as far as pedals go. Give me a tube
amp, some reverb, maybe tremolo for special occasions, and
I'm good to go.

The only pedal I've been consistently able to stand for more than 20
minutes at a time is the Boss EH-2 Enhancer. That works with
my playing, responds to dynamics and doesn't alter the tone in a bad
way. It's subtle. I've been hyping this thing every chance I get,
and most players give me that "you've really lost it this
time" look. The EH-2 is closer to a pickup-change-in-a-stompbox
than it is to an effect. Ironically, I'm not the least bit interested
in pickup swapping...